I received my M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering with honours from the University of Twente following a study on magnetic recording carried out at the Philips Research Laboratories, Eindhoven. In 1992 I received the doctorate degree with honours from the same university and was rewarded the 1993 Veder price of the Dutch Electronics and Radio Engineering Society (NERG) for my PhD-thesis on nonlinear integrated optics devices. From 1992-1995 I was a fellow of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and studied second- and third-order non linear integrated optics devices. In this period I was a visiting scientist at the Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers in Orlando, Florida, USA. In 1995-1997 I worked on integrated optic devices for optical telecommunication at the University of Twente and the Delft University of Technology. Since 1998 I have been associate professor in the Transducers Science and Technology (TST) group of the MESA+ research institute and mainly responsible for the micro-actuator research. A few year later I shifted my focus to biomimetic MEMS. In 2005 I was rewarded a NWO Vici grant for my project proposal BioEARS on cricket inspired flowsensors. Since May 1^st 2007 I am a full-professor of the chair of MEMS-Design focussing on bioinspired transducers. From April 2011 to December 2015 I was the chair of the Transducers Science & Technology group. My current research interests are Transducers science (including parametric and nonlinear transduction), Biomimetic sensors and 3D printed transducers and the materials science thereof.